Mothers’ strategies to calm infants based on iranian mothers experiences: A phenomenological study

Introduction: Iranian mothers similar to mums from other countries use traditional strategies to calm their infants. The aim of this study was to investigate the Iranian mothers' experiences and collect their points of view about their specific strategies.Materials and methods: Iranian mothers who agreed to sign the consent form and met our inclusion criteria were participated in this qualitative phenomenological study. Purposeful sampling and semi-structured in-depth interview (face to face or telephone based interview) was used to gather information from twenty one participants. Each interview lasted from 30 to 60 minutes. Colaizzi's seven step method was used to analyze the data.Results: Eight themes and categories emerged from data based on mothers’ experiences: vestibular, tactile, auditory, visual, thermal, and proprioceptive stimulation, physiological needs solving, metaphysical and superstitious strategies.Conclusion: Based on our result, there was a relationship between most traditional strategies used by participants and scientific principles basis of sensory integration theory and neuroscience. So, further qualitative and quantitative studies are needed to examine the effectiveness of traditional strategies that Iranian mothers use to calm their infants.Key Words: Calming strategies, Infant, Mother, pPhenomenological study